Leica aims for 1% camera market share

Premium camera brand looking to increase sales

Leica, the historic premium camera brand is looking to increase its market share to 1% of the global camera market.

Speaking to German Newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, chairman and majority owner of Leica, Andreas Kaufmann, said that the company hoped to achieve its target within the next 10 years.

Currently, Leica enjoys a share of 0.15%, with the US forming its biggest customer base. Kaufmann also told the newspaper that he expects China to overtake as the biggest market within five years.

Historic

German photography maker Leica was founded in 1913 and became especially prevalent amongst street photographers, particularly around the middle of the 20th century.

Today, Leica still produces premium cameras, such as the £5,000 M9, the smallest full-frame interchangeable lens camera in the world.

Panasonic also has a partnership with Leica and produces some lenses for its compact and compact system cameras with the Leica name.

A report by Bloomberg earlier this year showed that Canon is currently the market leader, with around 19% of the market, followed by Sony with 17.9% and Nikon with 12.6%.

On 7th November, Leica announced that it had increased sales in the first half of the fiscal year 2011/12, following on from "record results" in the year 2010/2011. Sales of cameras, lenses and accessories have jumped by 27.9% from €110.8m to €141.7m when compared to the prior year period.